Old people shouldn't be able to vote

[Kubra]

But if we remove the tax, how will the poor gain suffrage?
Oh, so you want to recognize FICA as a tax, and then *abolish* it?
Seriously man, you're going to have to explain in detail how you don't want the poor to lose the vote.

Of course it is a tax! It should be abolished, for it is based upon a vicious lie. While my voter proposal would be effective in any case, assuming welfare-state democracy, I would support a single head tax on voting, alongside a uniform and unified welfare system. Whether I actually support a welfare-state democracy is another point entirely, and different from the proposal being discussed.

so then explain: how do we give the poor a vote?

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

I must admit the Brexit Referendum result did almost make me consider this...

But no, I think as many people as possible voting is the best way. A bigger sample.

[Ninjar Dread]

No old people (wise, full of knowledge, experience,) should be allowed to vote hands down.

Young people (foolish, incredibly unbelievably stupid, inexperienced, impulsive, completely guided by their emotions facts reason and logic be damned) on the other hand shouldn't be allowed to vote until the age of 25 so that at least they will have a few years of real world experience under their belts.

[Dumb Ideologies]

I've mulled over a similar thing myself on another thread recently. After retirement, people tend to be gradually less and less involved in economic and public life to the point where generally their level of investment and participation in society is less than other people so their opinion has less "weight".

That said, the minimum age so be raised to 25 or 30 rather than go the other way because the very young don't have enough accumulated life experience to vote responsibly.

Or we could just get rid of democracy in its current form altogether and restrict it to the local sphere and unions/professional groups because people only really tend to understand things they're directly involved in on a day to day basis.

[Dogmeat]

Only people who are my current age should be allowed to vote.

[Alvecia]

Society progresses one funeral at a time.

That said, no I don't think there should be an upper age bracket on voting.

[Hkuerreriosa]

Short of actual senility, there shouldn't be an upper limit.

[The Blaatschapen]

If you're too young to join the military, you shouldn't be able to vote. The natural consequence is that, if you're too old to be in the military, you shouldn't be able to vote.

*nods*

[Nimzonia]

That said, the minimum age so be raised to 25 or 30 rather than go the other way because the very young don't have enough accumulated life experience to vote responsibly.

The world is changing too quickly for life experience to mean anything anymore. My grandparents have tons of "life experience" and they can't even work out how to order something on the internet. Their last relevant life experience was half a century ago.

Cognitive decline affects everyone after the age of about 30. There's a reason old people are a preferred target for scammers. Young people may have less life experience, if that's even worth anything anymore, but their brains still function at full capacity.

[Dumb Ideologies]

That said, the minimum age so be raised to 25 or 30 rather than go the other way because the very young don't have enough accumulated life experience to vote responsibly.

The world is changing too quickly for life experience to mean anything anymore. My grandparents have tons of "life experience" and they can't even work out how to order something on the internet. Their last relevant life experience was half a century ago.

Cognitive decline affects everyone after the age of about 30. There's a reason old people are a preferred target for scammers. Young people may have less life experience, if that's even worth anything anymore, but their brains still function at full capacity.

Big brain power is worth very little without experience, as anyone who's had a youngster fresh out of uni come into their workplace without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work would attest.

[Nimzonia]

The world is changing too quickly for life experience to mean anything anymore. My grandparents have tons of "life experience" and they can't even work out how to order something on the internet. Their last relevant life experience was half a century ago.

Cognitive decline affects everyone after the age of about 30. There's a reason old people are a preferred target for scammers. Young people may have less life experience, if that's even worth anything anymore, but their brains still function at full capacity.

Big brain power is worth very little without experience, as anyone who's had a youngster fresh out of uni come into their workplace without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work would attest.

Also useless is experience without brain power. Especially when that experience is obsolete, anyway.

[Incredible Bums]

Unless you're one of those weirdos who eats pizza with a fork and knife. Then the right to vote should be rescinded.

Only because your parents obviously used to raise you with junkfood, this is the correct way to eat a pizza - served on a plate, and consumed by eating it by the use of a knife and a fork. Have you ever been to Napoli (thats this "weirdo inhabited place in Italy, where the original pizza - only fresh made dough, polpa, mozzarella di buffalo and basilico - is coming from) ? What do you think they use there ? Chopsticks ?

[Dumb Ideologies]

Big brain power is worth very little without experience, as anyone who's had a youngster fresh out of uni come into their workplace without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work would attest.

Also useless is experience without brain power. Especially when that experience is obsolete, anyway.

I don't disagree with that principle, though I suspect you might put the point of obsolescence somewhat earlier than I would.

[Incredible Bums]

I'm 66. I question whether YOUNG people are qualified to vote. So many seem ignorant of history. Small wonder...they have so little of it themselves.

I´m in my sixties too - and I have to say, that "history" proves, that for thousands of years the "older ones" also didn´t learn anything from history; they are tought by "us", and they´ve got to live in the world, we, the "older ones", create for them - which doesn´t throw exactly the best light on "us".

[The Blaatschapen]

I'm 66. I question whether YOUNG people are qualified to vote. So many seem ignorant of history. Small wonder...they have so little of it themselves.

If young people are ignorant of history it is because the older ones didn't teach them

[Idzequitch]

There never comes a point where you're too old for the government to screw up your life; therefore, you're never too old to vote against the government screwing up your life.

Seriously though, the laws of a nation affect all its citizens, so it's important everyone is able to vote for their representation in government, unless there's a really good reason they shouldn't be allowed to do so, such as the fact that young children lack the ability to understand political policy or what policies would benefit them (though hey, maybe dessert before dinner would be a policy that could garner support from all sides?). Seniors, as long as they retain the ability to think for themselves, must retain the right to vote.

[The Blaatschapen]

There never comes a point where you're too old for the government to screw up your life; therefore, you're never too old to vote against the government screwing up your life.

Seriously though, the laws of a nation affect all its citizens, so it's important everyone is able to vote for their representation in government, unless there's a really good reason they shouldn't be allowed to do so, such as the fact that young children lack the ability to understand political policy or what policies would benefit them (though hey, maybe dessert before dinner would be a policy that could garner support from all sides?). Seniors, as long as they retain the ability to think for themselves, must retain the right to vote.

Sometimes, the laws of another country affect citizens of other countries.

If that is the metric, I want voting rights in the USA.

[Nimzonia]

Also useless is experience without brain power. Especially when that experience is obsolete, anyway.

I don't disagree with that principle, though I suspect you might put the point of obsolescence somewhat earlier than I would.

My opinions are probably shaped by my first job out of uni, at an in-house software department. There was one guy over 30 in our whole office. Ostensibly our job was to develop and maintain the in-house enterprise software, but mostly we ended up fixing trivial pebkac problems for everyone in the company over the age of 40. All day, we'd have useless boomers coming in from accounts next door wanting us to fix stuff they'd broken. I'd frequently be in the position of having to demonstrate how to use hardware I'd never seen before to people who used it every day, or salvage their mangled spreadsheets even though I had no experience using excel at all. I once had to change out a monitor for a senior manager because she insisted her old one was bigger despite the fact they were the exact same model. Also, the 60-year-old Managing Director who could barely operate a computer would call a qualified software engineer from our department into his office any time he wanted to print anything.

Strangely, the office juniors without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work never seemed to have these problems.

[Conquerus]

What kind of crazy proposition is this? Of course old people should be able to vote.

[Dumb Ideologies]

I don't disagree with that principle, though I suspect you might put the point of obsolescence somewhat earlier than I would.

My opinions are probably shaped by my first job out of uni, at an in-house software department. There was one guy over 30 in our whole office. Ostensibly our job was to develop and maintain the in-house enterprise software, but mostly we ended up fixing trivial pebkac problems for everyone in the company over the age of 40. All day, we'd have useless boomers coming in from accounts next door wanting us to fix stuff they'd broken. I'd frequently be in the position of having to demonstrate how to use hardware I'd never seen before to people who used it every day, or salvage their mangled spreadsheets even though I had no experience using excel at all. I once had to change out a monitor for a senior manager because she insisted her old one was bigger despite the fact they were the exact same model. Also, the 60-year-old Managing Director who could barely operate a computer would call a qualified software engineer from our department into his office any time he wanted to print anything.

Strangely, the office juniors without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work never seemed to have these problems.

Terrifyingly, I recently had to show a 23 year old how to search their emails in Microsoft Outlook, how to print an excel spreadsheet properly, and how to do a mail merge.

I was looking around for the hidden cameras.

[The Blaatschapen]

My opinions are probably shaped by my first job out of uni, at an in-house software department. There was one guy over 30 in our whole office. Ostensibly our job was to develop and maintain the in-house enterprise software, but mostly we ended up fixing trivial pebkac problems for everyone in the company over the age of 40. All day, we'd have useless boomers coming in from accounts next door wanting us to fix stuff they'd broken. I'd frequently be in the position of having to demonstrate how to use hardware I'd never seen before to people who used it every day, or salvage their mangled spreadsheets even though I had no experience using excel at all. I once had to change out a monitor for a senior manager because she insisted her old one was bigger despite the fact they were the exact same model. Also, the 60-year-old Managing Director who could barely operate a computer would call a qualified software engineer from our department into his office any time he wanted to print anything.

Strangely, the office juniors without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work never seemed to have these problems.

Terrifyingly, I recently had to show a 23 year old how to search their emails in Microsoft Outlook, how to print an excel spreadsheet properly, and how to do a mail merge.

I was looking around for the hidden cameras.

Ok, boomer

[Alvecia]

My opinions are probably shaped by my first job out of uni, at an in-house software department. There was one guy over 30 in our whole office. Ostensibly our job was to develop and maintain the in-house enterprise software, but mostly we ended up fixing trivial pebkac problems for everyone in the company over the age of 40. All day, we'd have useless boomers coming in from accounts next door wanting us to fix stuff they'd broken. I'd frequently be in the position of having to demonstrate how to use hardware I'd never seen before to people who used it every day, or salvage their mangled spreadsheets even though I had no experience using excel at all. I once had to change out a monitor for a senior manager because she insisted her old one was bigger despite the fact they were the exact same model. Also, the 60-year-old Managing Director who could barely operate a computer would call a qualified software engineer from our department into his office any time he wanted to print anything.

Strangely, the office juniors without any practical skills or realistic notions of how people work never seemed to have these problems.

Terrifyingly, I recently had to show a 23 year old how to search their emails in Microsoft Outlook, how to print an excel spreadsheet properly, and how to do a mail merge.

I was looking around for the hidden cameras.

It saddens me how little our apprentices know about excel. It's such a useful tool.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Terrifyingly, I recently had to show a 23 year old how to search their emails in Microsoft Outlook, how to print an excel spreadsheet properly, and how to do a mail merge.

I was looking around for the hidden cameras.

Ok, boomer

[sends angry fax]

[Incredible Bums]

Older people have to retest to continue driving because of the obvious question of public safety at a micro level, and they should at the very least be tested to be able to continue to vote because of the obvious question of public safety at the macro level. (And if testing people to be able to vote bothers you, you can always simply name a cutoff age.)

Yeah, we need a test to see if they're educated enough to continue voting. A literacy test, if you will.

That´s elitist and in the end leads to some kind of dictatorship, because most people are more egoistic than altruistic, and bettter educated (and therefore usually better paid) people usually tend to "secure" a better education for their children (to "secure" the children´s better future); therefore they will vote for the parties or persons who kind of "restrict" the educational system (like in the US and other countries, where you have to pay for higher education), which is achieved usually by "monetary methods", and thus kind of excluding more or less children of "lower" social or monetary status from higher education (with the usual exceptions), and so reinforcing the existing differencies in social (educational and/or monetary) status.

[SD_Film Artists]

No. This is ridiculous lol. Elderly people have significantly more life experience than the younger generation and will make far better decisions.

Like racism, an outdated notions of modern job roles, and general boomery?
Not that I'm saying all 60+ people are like that, but if we're going to start generalising people I'd much rather have 16 yr olds voting rather than them. Don't forget that it was primarily the older generations who voted Brexit.